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Melungeon is a term that has recently come to be used for an estimated 200 or more ethnically mixed populations east of the Missouri River in the United States that are of varied origin, in most cases combinations of various European, African, and Native American strains.

Melungeons have been the subject of much debate about their ethnic, linguistic, cultural and geographic origins. They are not officially recognized as an ethnic or racial group by the U.S. government.

Melungeons are only one of several so-called "tri-racial isolate" groups of the Eastern United States. Originally, the term was applied only to the tri-racial group found mainly in the Appalachian regions of East Tennessee, Southwest Virginia, and Eastern Kentucky. Since the 1990s, however, the term "Melungeon" has come to be used by some as applying to all such "tri-racial" groups or families, while the term "tri-racial" itself is considered insulting by some self-identifying Melungeons.

Etymology of term

There are many hypotheses about the etymology of the term "Melungeon." Kennedy (1994) speculates that the term originates from the Turkish melun can (from Arabic "melun jinn") which means "cursed soul" or "lost soul." Another theory, long favored by many researchers on the topic, is that it derives from the French "Mélangien," meaning a person produced by a mélange, or mixture. Yet another theory traces the word to "malungu," a Luso-African root from Angola meaning "shipmate."

However, a more likely derivation is from the archaic English word "malengin" (also spelled "mal engine") meaning "guile," "deceit," or "ill intent." The earliest known written use of the word is in an 1813 Scott County, Virginia Stony Creek Baptist Church record: "Then came forward Sister Kitchen and complained to the church against Susanna Stallard for saying she harbored them melungins" (meaning "ill will," from the context). Even today, some people in East Tennessee still use the term to mean something like "boogeyman."

By 1840 the term "Malungeon" had apparently become a racial pejorative, at least in Tennessee: a Jonesborough, Tennessee newspaper article from that year refers to a competing politician in derogatory fashion as "an impudent Malungeon from Washington Cty, a scoundrel who is half Negro and half Indian." The process whereby a "boogeyman" became a "half Negro...half Indian" may have been similar to the application of such racial slurs as "spook" and "jigaboo" to African-Americans.

Several other uses of the term from mid-19th to early 20th century print media have been collected at the following Website: . The spelling of the term varied somewhat from author to author, until eventually the form "Melungeon" became standard.

Until the late 20th century, the term "Melungeon" was considered an insult, a label applied to Appalachian whites who were by appearance or reputation of mixed-race ancestry, though who were not clearly either "black" or "Indian." In Southwest Virginia, the roughly synonymous term "Ramp" was also used. During the mid-1960s, "Melungeon" began to lose its pejorative connotations. Folklorist Wayne Winkler believes the emergence of this new identity was spurred by the presentation of playwright Kermit Hunter's outdoor drama Walk Toward the Sunset. This play about Melungeons, which was produced out of a desire to exploit local legends for tourism, was first presented in 1969 in Sneedville, Tennessee. It makes no claims to historical accuracy, and portrays the Melungeons as an indigenous people of uncertain race who are wrongly perceived as black by the white settlers. Due to the increased interest in Melungeons that this drama sparked (and the not unfavorable light in which they were portrayed therein), many individuals began for the first time to self-identify as Melungeons, something that had previously been largely hidden. Since the 1990s, interest in the Melungeons has grown tremendously, largely due to the Internet.

Controversy

The extent to which Melungeons constitute a specific race or ethnicity is controversial, because members of this group are considered to be racially mixed rather than exhibiting characteristics which can be incontrovertibly classified as being of a single racial phenotype. A common claim on the Internet, for example, is that Melungeons have an enlarged external occipital protuberance, termed an "Anatolian Bump," after the fact that such a feature appears among many Anatolian Turks. However, many other populations have this "bump," and it is not a definitive indicator of any specific ethnicity. Also, some believe that certain diseases, such as sarcoidosis or familial mediterranean fever, are more common among Melungeons. There is absolutely no scientific evidence to back up these claims, however.

A DNA study was carried out in 2000 by Dr. Kevin Jones, using samples taken from self-identified Melungeons (a list of those contributing samples has to date not been published). The results revealed a very mixed population, but did not prove anything definitively. More recently, individual Y chromosomal DNA testing of some male Melungeon descendants with surnames Gibson, Goins, and Minor have revealed African Y haplogroups. DNA testing has proven controversial, however, because there is disagreement among people who claim Melungeon descent as to exactly who should be considered Melungeon. Some researchers (such as Jack Goins and Pat Elder) favor a more narrow definition, while others (such as N. Brent Kennedy) see Melungeon as a very broad category.

Much of the information that can be found on the Internet about Melungeons is based on little or no evidence, and should be used with great caution.

Locations

Other "tri-racial isolate" populations include the:

Each of these groupings of mixed-race populations has a particular history and culture, but historical evidence shows relationships among some of them.

Origins

Tracing Melungeon origins has always been contentious. According to the research of Pat Elder, the earliest claim about their identity and origin was that they were "Indian," followed later by the notion that they were "Portuguese." In recent years more exotic theories have appeared, in particular the notion that they are "Gypsy" or "Turkish," the latter of which was apparently invented by researcher N. Brent Kennedy.

Complicating the issue of Melungeon origins is the lack of a clear consensus on exactly who should be considered Melungeon. However, most researchers would agree that Collins and Gibson are core Melungeon surnames, and many also list Goins, Mullins, Bunch, Minor, and a few others (though this does not mean that all families with these surnames are Melungeon). Looking at the multiracial Collins, Gibson and related families of Newman's Ridge, Tennessee, genealogists Dr Virginia E. DeMarce, Paul Heinegg and Pat Elder, as well as Melungeon descendant Jack Goins, have traced these families back to eastern Virginia in the early 1700s, in particular to Louisa County. These families followed the same migration paths into the back country as their English, Scotch-Irish, and German neighbors, arriving in East Tennessee in the early 19th century. Despite the claims of some researchers, there is no evidence whatsoever that the Melungeons were already in Tennessee prior to the arrival of the first white settlers. Records show that these families held property, voted, and for the most part were otherwise well integrated into the white communities in which they lived. In fact, there is little indication that they constituted a distinct ethnic group at all. By the 1830 census, most are listed as white. Modern anthropological and sociological studies of the Melungeons have shown that they are culturally indistinguishable from their "non-Melungeon" white neighbors.

Southern families with multiracial ancestry have often claimed Portuguese or American Indian (specifically Cherokee) ancestry as a strategy for denying any African ancestry. Evans (1979) writes: "In Graysville, the Melungeons strongly deny their Black heritage and explain their genetic differences by claiming to have had Cherokee grandmothers. Many of the local whites also claim Cherokee ancestry and appear to accept the Melungeon claim...." Although Portuguese and/or Cherokee ancestry may exist in some Melungeon descendants today, there is no historical evidence that the original Melungeon families who migrated from Eastern Virginia to Tennessee had such ancestry. The available historical evidence points to these families being a blend of British, West African, and Native American of undetermined or mixed tribal origin (possibly Powhatan or Saponi).

In his Foreword to the section on Virginia, North, and South Carolina in Heinegg's work on free African Americans, historian Ira Berlin sums up the history of the Melungeons and similar groups:

"Heinegg's genealogical excavations reveal that many free people of color passed as whites--sometimes by choosing ever lighter spouses over succeeding generations. Even more commonly, they claimed Indian ancestry. Some free people of color invented tribal designations out of whole cloth. Here Heinegg, entering into an area of considerable controversy, explodes what he declares the "fantastic" claims of many so-called tri-racial isolates."


References

  • Berry, Brewton (1963). Almost White. New York: Macmillan Press.
  • DeMarce, Virginia E. (1992). "Verry Slitly Mixt': Tri-Racial Isolate Families of the Upper South - A Genealogical Study." National Genealogical Society Quarterly, v. 80 (March 1992), pp. 5-35.
  • DeMarce, Virginia E. (1993). "Looking at Legends - Lumbee and Melungeon: Applied Genealogy and the Origins of Tri-Racial Isolate Settlements." National Genealogical Society Quarterly, v. 81 (March 1993), pp. 24-45.
  • DeMarce, Virginia E. (1996). Review of The Melungeons: Resurrection of a Proud People. National Genealogical Society Quarterly, v. 84, no. 2 (June 1996), pp. 134-149.
  • Elder, Pat Spurlock (1999). Melungeons: Examining an Appalachian Legend. Blountville, Tennessee: Continuity Press.
  • Evans, E. Raymond (1979). "The Graysville Melungeons: A Tri-racial People in Lower East Tennessee." Tennessee Anthropologist IV(1):1-31.
  • Forbes, Jack D. (1993). Africans and Native Americans The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red-Black Peoples. University of Illinois Press.
  • Goins, Jack H. (2000). Melungeons: And Other Pioneer Families. Blountville, Tennessee: Continuity Press.
  • Heinegg, Paul. FREE AFRICAN AMERICANS OF VIRGINIA, NORTH CAROLINA, SOUTH CAROLINA, MARYLAND AND DELAWARE Including the family histories of more than 80% of those counted as "all other free persons" in the 1790 and 1800 census. Available in its entirety online at http://www.freeafricanamericans.com
  • Kennedy, N. Brent, with Robyn Vaughan Kennedy (1994). The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press.
  • Langdon, Barbara Tracy (1998). The Melungeons: An Annotated Bibliography: References in both Fiction and Nonfiction. Hemphill, Texas: Dogwood Press.
  • McGowan, Kathleen (2003). "Where do we really come from?" DISCOVER, v. 24, no. 5 (May 2003).
  • Price, Edward T. (1953). "A Geographic Analysis of White-Negro-Indian Racial Mixtures in Eastern United States." The Association of American Geographers. Annals v. 43 (June 1953), pp. 138-55.
  • Price, Henry R. (1966). "Melungeons: The Vanishing Colony of Newman's Ridge." Conference Paper. American Studies Association of Kentucky and Tennessee. March 25-26, 1966.
  • Winkler, Wayne (1997). "The Melungeons." All Things Considered. National Public Radio. 21 Sept. 1997. The Melungeons

See also

External links

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